the California City Correctional Facility (CCCF) is a private prison owned by CoreCivic. as mentioned here, American deserts in their perceived emptiness have long been the sites of unwanted institutions, practices, and people. the location of the CCCF and other remote prisons (both public and private) casts them into a kind of willful invisibility—out of sight, out of mind—for all who are privileged enough to remain some distance from the criminal justice system. such geographic invisibility has demonstrated effects on incarcerated people, as remote carceral landscapes make rehabilitation more difficult in a variety of ways (Young).

 

the CCCF is deeply related to nearby California City, as most of residents are either employees at the prison or at the Edwards Air Force Base to the south. without the facility—itself a violent version of a masterplanned community—the city might have been a complete failure and be entirely uninhabited. here, the prison and city, both economic objects, create and enable one another—they intra-act.